This invention relates generally to social networking, and more specifically to using the data contained within a social networking system to locate a user's account.
Social networking systems typically permit users to log into the social networking system by enabling a user to provide a login email address or an account name and a password. Users can create a login identification name (or, “login ID”) and set an accompanying password when creating a social networking system account. The user can then use the same login ID and password to log into and access the social networking system subsequently. In other instances, the user may not be required to create a login ID. For example, a user may provide his or her email address and an associated password when creating a social networking system account. The user may then be required to enter the email address and the associated password to subsequently access his or her social networking system account. However, users can forget their login ID, their login email address, or their password and thus may not be able to access their social networking system account.
To assist a user who has forgotten his or her login information, the social networking system may require the user to submit a recovery email address or a recovery phone number when creating a social networking system account. To recover the account, the social networking system typically sends the user account's login ID, login email address, or password to the recovery email address or phone number. For example, the social networking system can send an email to the recovery email address or a SMS message to the recovery phone number. The user then accesses his or her recovery email account or phone number to recover the login information sent by the social networking system. Disadvantageously, this method of recovering user login information does not enable account recovery for a user who has forgotten or is no longer associated with his or her recovery email account for phone number. For example, if a user has forgotten the password for his or her recovery email account, or if the user's recovery email address or phone numbers have been deactivated, the user would not be able to access the login information sent by the social networking system.